Judaism – Page 51

Unexpected Barbadian find

Nidhe Israel Synagogue is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (photo by Tasha Nathanson)

One of the oldest synagogues in the Western Hemisphere is in Barbados. I was living in Barbados, working on a Canadian agricultural development project, when I tripped over this unexpected fact. I knew that the real estate agent who helped me find housing – and who, not coincidentally, became my neighbour – was Jewish, but I had assumed he was an anomaly here, in the most eastern island of the Caribbean. This was not the place I had anticipated a Jewish story to unfold.

The neighbour, Steven Altman, is reasonably well known in this small place where everyone seems to know most everyone. But many of the islanders I met inserted the comment, “he’s Jewish” into any mention of him, which reinforced my impression that being Jewish was unusual here. The Barbados I encountered in the seven months I lived there is a place that runs according to racial categories and everyone seems to be categorized according to skin colour and place of origin. Even though I’m half-Jewish, I was the white Canadian woman at work.

Curiosity prompted me to board a crazy ZR van headed into Bridgetown one day to find out more about Nidhe Israel Synagogue. ZR vans are semi-unregulated transport vehicles built to seat about 10 passengers, though I’ve been in them packed with more than 20 fellow travelers. People squish in, pressing up against each other with infinite stony-faced endurance. The soca music is generally blaring and often the driver has the flag of some neighbouring island pinned to the front, indicating where he lived before ending up in Barbados driving the public bus route in a private vehicle. The cost is always exactly two Barbadian dollars to ride and the experience is totally worth it.

The Synagogue Historic District is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Barbados capital city of Bridgetown. Originally built around 1654, it was destroyed by an 1831 hurricane, rebuilt in 1833 and restored from 1987 through 2017. Constructed by Sephardi Jews fleeing Recife, Brazil, after that colony passed from Dutch to Portuguese hands, these arrivals sought the relative safety of British-controled territory. The Jewish community was able to practise their faith openly here even before they regained that right in England.

photo - The synagogue grounds include a cemetery — The synagogue grounds include a cemetery. *(photo by Tasha Nathanson)*

The refugees settled into housing on Jew Street (now Swan Street) and brought with them knowledge and experience of the sugar cane industry. For this, I raise a glass of fine Barbadian rum, as this accident of history resulted in a terrific local finished product. By the mid-1700s, the Jewish community was 800 strong, which was the peak of Jewish settlement.

The hurricane in 1831 was a disaster that destroyed more than just the synagogue, resulting in an exodus to the United Kingdom and the United States. By the 1920s, only one Jewish resident, Edmund Baeza, remained, holding the keys to the building. When he, too, left, the synagogue was sold and deconsecrated.

photo - The mikvah wasn’t open to the public, but the inside could be seen from the window — The mikvah wasn’t open to the public, but the inside could be seen from the window. (photo by Tasha Nathanson)

By the 1980s, the building was dilapidated, in use as a warehouse and destined for demolition, when a renewed Jewish community stepped in to begin the process of restoration. The synagogue officially reopened in April 2017, and it is a gorgeous, tranquil and instructive space.

When my neighbour Steven boasted that it was his family that was responsible for the resurgent Jewish community in Barbados, I filed away his comment with a few of his other questionable statements, such as when he had appealed for my company on the basis of needing someone to wash his laundry. Steven wasn’t even aware that I might take offence. Standards of male expression and behaviour are one of the more dubious cultural differences for a Canadian woman living temporarily in Barbados.

photo - The inside of the mikvah — The inside of the mikvah. *(photo by Tasha Nathanson)*

Despite my skepticism, however, the Altmans were indeed a primary element of the reconstruction effort and are longstanding pillars of the community, according to the plaques at the synagogue. Steven, when asked, wistfully described the tight-knit community of his childhood, drawn together to play games, fundraise for charity and visit each other’s homes, in addition to worshipping together. I grew to enjoy hearing Steven’s voice trailing out the windows of his home and through the tropical evening heat when he practised the prayers for services; it became a pleasant part of my experience of Barbados.

The second wave of Jewish Barbadians was Ashkenazi, mainly fleeing Europe, starting to arrive shortly after Baeza’s departure. My tour guide at the synagogue museum, curator Celso H. Brewster, described desperately seasick travelers bound for South America with skeins of cloth and other mercantile goods to start anew, stumbling out onto the solid ground of Barbados and refusing to go any farther. They set up shop in Bridgetown instead of continuing their journey.

As for Celso himself, he informed me that he was Baha’i but that he did have some Jewish roots as well. Those roots travel through his family line via a version of what was once a Jewish name, bestowed on a born-out-of-wedlock ancestor via a certain plantation holder with, shall we say, quite liberal application of his affections. I’ve heard various versions of this story from other Barbadians. Jews were not only merchants, but there were some Jewish pirates and, sadly, Jewish slave owners.

Nidhe Israel Synagogue and its grounds – which include the original mikvah, which was uncovered in 2008 to reveal a still-flowing spring; an extensive cemetery, as well as a museum – is a beautiful oasis for thoughtful reflection and learning.

The Synagogue Historic District is located on Synagogue Lane, Bridgetown, Saint Michael’s, Barbados. The museum is open weekdays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. It is free to enter the courtyard to look around; the entrance fee to the museum is $25 BDS (about $16 Cdn). To find out more, visit synagoguehistoricdistrict.com. Better yet, visit the synagogue.

Tasha Nathanson recently returned from a stint in the eastern Caribbean as gender equality and youth empowerment advisor on a World University Service of Canada project.

Pesach’s lessons for today

Israel’s Escape from Egypt, illustration from a Bible card published in 1907 by the Providence Lithograph Company. (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

We begin Passover – which starts this year on the night of March 30 – with two seders, and invite family, friends and guests to celebrate the holiday with us. At both seders, we eat matzah, to recall the swiftness of our ancestors’ departure from Egypt, maror (horseradish) to commemorate the bitterness of the slavery in Egypt and charoset, which resembles the mortar our ancestors were forced to use to build pyramids for Pharaoh. The 15 steps of the seder (order) are our way of retelling the tale.

G-d Himself rescued His beloved children from their bitter situation. As written in the Haggadah, “Vayotzeeaynu Hashem Mimitzraim, lo al yiday malach, v’lo al yiday saraf, v’lo al yiday shaliach, ela haKadosh Baruch Hu bichvodo uviatzmo” – “G-d brought us out of Egypt, not through an angel, not through a fiery angel and not through a messenger, but it was the Holy One blessed be He, He Himself in His glory.”

The Israelites had spent 210 years in Egypt, which was an agricultural country, where the soil was fertile, irrigated by the Nile. Our commentaries teach that Pharaoh didn’t want anyone to see him taking care of his bodily functions, so he would go to the Nile early in the morning then return to the palace. He guarded his power with brutality. We recall the birth of Moses and his early life in a basket on the Nile, saved by Pharaoh’s daughter, Batya (the daughter of G-d) and his rise to life in the palace of Pharaoh.

One of the most striking features of the Exodus was the Israelites’ faith in the promises of G-d. They were an entire nation, men, women and children, numbering several million, who willingly left a prosperous and well-settled country, whose pagan values had already left their impression on them, to venture on a long and dangerous journey without provisions, but with absolute reliance on the word of G-d, as spoken to Moses.

Even more, they didn’t follow the familiar and shorter route through the land of the Philistines, which, although it involved the risk of war, was far more attractive than the prospect of crossing a vast and desolate desert. In war, there is a chance of victory and, even in defeat, there is the chance of escape, but, in a desert, with no food or water, nature allows no chance of survival. Yet they followed this route, disregarding rationality and trusting in the word of G-d.

Why did they do this?

This question is echoed in every generation. In the contemporary, materialistic and competitive world, where we all struggle for economic survival, how can we exempt ourselves from its values? How can we adhere to a code of precepts that restricts our actions? The answer lies in the Exodus from Egypt.

In that time, when Jews responded to the call of G-d, disregarding what seemed reasonable, breaking with the values of their Egyptian environment, it transpired that the path they took was the path of true happiness, spiritually in receiving the Torah and becoming G-d’s Chosen People, and materially, in reaching the Promised Land, flowing with milk and honey.

So it is today and always. Through the Torah – the Torat Chayim, the Law of Life – and the mitzvot (good deeds or commandments), a Jew attaches themselves to the creator of the world, and frees themselves from all “natural” limitations. This is still the way of happiness.

Wishing you a happy, kosher and enjoyable Passover, wherever you find yourself in the world. If you find yourself traveling, or even here in Metro Vancouver without a place to celebrate, there are Chabad Houses where you can commemorate our ancestors’ freedom from Egypt at a joyous and meaningful seder. Chag kosher v’sameach.

Esther Tauby is a local educator, writer and counselor. She wrote this article using excerpts from the letters of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

A few Pesach songs’ origins

An illustration by Russian artist El Lissitzky in the book Had Gadya, 1919. (photo from getty.edu)

We sing them every year, but from where did Passover songs such as “Chad Gadya” originate?

“Chad Gadya” or “One Little Goat” is a playful cumulative song in Aramaic and Hebrew, sung at the end of the seder. According to Wikipedia, the melody may have its roots in medieval German folk music. It first appeared in a Haggadah printed in Prague in 1590, which makes it the most recent inclusion to the traditional Passover seder liturgy.

The Haggadah was a project that was initiated by the anshei Knesset Hagedola, the members of the Great Assembly, the supreme council of sages that ruled during Temple times in Jerusalem. They were the first to compile and canonize many of the texts that we have today. The Haggadah, however, was only started during that era – it was not completed until much later.

“Chad Gadya” also only found its way into the Haggadah at a much later date. This is because the song was written in Aramaic, which was the vernacular of the Jews of Babylon, and not in Hebrew – at least not in Hebrew for the most part. The slaughterer, angel of death and Holy One Blessed Be He in the song are referred to in Hebrew.

Some suggest that “Chad Gadya” was written by Rabbi Eliezer Rokeach in the 12th century.

According to some modern Jewish commentators, the song may be symbolic. One interpretation is that “Chad Gadya” is about the different nations that have conquered the Land of Israel: the kid (goat) symbolizes the Jewish people; the cat, Assyria; the dog, Babylon; the stick, Persia; the fire, Macedonia; the water, the Roman Empire; the ox, the Saracens; the slaughterer, the Crusaders; the angel of death, the Turks. At the end, God returns to send the Jews back to Israel. The recurring refrain of two zuzim is a reference to the two stone tablets given to Moses on Mount Sinai, or refer to Moses and Aaron.

Versions of the song exist in Ladino, Judeo-Italian and Judeo-Arabic.

***

We know that the “Avadim Hayinu” (“We Were Slaves”) section was written by Rabbi Eliezer Hagadol in the second century). It is an introduction to the formal narration of the Exodus from Egypt, based on the views of Samuel. Passages of unknown origin supplement the narration, stressing its importance.

***

“Echad Mi Yodea” (“Who Knows One”) is another cumulative riddle with versions in Hebrew and Yiddish. The song relates the 13 basics of Judaism. After relating God’s wonders and kindness and the events of the Exodus, it demonstrates how everything can and should relate to God.

According to Encyclopedia Judaica, this song is first found in Ashkenazi Haggadot of the 16th century. It is believed to have originated in Germany in the 15th century, possibly based on the German folk song “Guter freund ich frage dich,” which means “Good friend, I ask you.”

***

“Dayenu” is a Hebrew song, traditionally sung during Passover. The word itself essentially means, “It would have been enough for us.” Day is the Hebrew word for “enough” and the suffix enu means “our.”

This traditional up-beat Passover song is more than 1,000 years old. The earliest full text of the song occurs in the first medieval Haggadah, which is part of the ninth-century Seder Rav Amram.

The song goes through a series of gifts believed granted by God to the Israelites, such as Torah and Shabbat, proclaiming that any of them alone would have been sufficient. It is 15 verses long, sequentially recounting each divine intervention in the story of the Exodus. After each divine act, the chorus “[If God had done only this,] it would have been enough for us” is sung.

Canadian journalist, author and social activist Michele Landsberg wrote “The Women’s Dayenu”:

“If Eve had been created in the image of God and not as a helper to Adam, dayenu.

“If she had been created as Adam’s equal and not been considered a temptress, dayenu.

“If Lot’s wife had been honoured for compassion for looking back at the fate of her family in Sodom, and had not been punished for it, dayenu.

“If our mothers had been honoured for their daughters as well as for their sons, dayenu.

“If our fathers had not pitted our mothers against each other, like Abraham with Sarah and Hagar, or Jacob with Leah and Rachel, dayenu.

“If the just women in Egypt who caused our redemption had been given sufficient recognition, dayenu.

“If Miriam were given her seat with Moses and Aaron in our legacy, dayenu.

“If women had written the Haggadah and placed our mothers where they belong in history, dayenu.

“If every generation of women together with every generation of men would continue to go out of Egypt, dayenu.”

***

“Adir Hu” (“Mighty is He”) is a hymn naming the virtues of God in the order of the Hebrew alphabet, expressing hope that God will rebuild the Holy Temple speedily.

The tune of “Adir Hu” has undergone several variations over the years, but the origin is from the German minnesinger period. The earliest extant music for the song is from the 1644 Rittangel Haggadah, the second form was in the 1677 Haggadah Zevach Pesach, and the third version can be found in the 1769 Selig Haggadah. In the Selig Haggadah, “Adir Hu” is also referred to, in German, as “Baugesang” (the song of the rebuilding of the Temple).

There are 24 short, simple lines, each beginning with an attribute of God. Most of the virtues of God are adjectives – for instance, holy (kadosh) – however, a few are nouns, “Lord is He.”

There is also a feminist variant of the song by Rabbi Jill Hammer of the Academy for Jewish Religion in Yonkers, New York. In it, God is feminine (She) and, quoting Hammer, the song “emphasizes God’s sharing in human joys and griefs, and God’s ability to renew life through the strength of the earth.”

Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, lecturer, book reviewer and food writer in Jerusalem. She created and leads the weekly English-language Shuk Walks in Machane Yehuda, she has compiled and edited nine kosher cookbooks, and is the author of Witness to History: Ten Years as a Woman Journalist in Israel.

Contending with contradictions

“The Four Sons,” Arthur Szyk, 1934. According to Wikimedia, Szyk “originally intended his Passover story of persecution and deliverance (told through the traditional text of the Haggadah) to be a strong statement against the Nazis, but no publisher in his native Poland dared take on a project with strong anti-Nazi iconography. He ultimately found a publisher in England. This image of the Four Sons … depicts the Wicked Son as an assimilated German complete with porkpie hat and Hitler mustache.” (image from From Arthur Szyk Society, Burlingame, Calif.)

The significance of the seder’s Four Questions should not be confined to being a concrete educational tool for the purpose of teaching historical information to children having a limited sense of abstraction and who bore easily. The questions are a characteristic of the adult intellectual culture during the time of the rabbis.

In the Mishnah, the child is the one who asks and the parent teaches, but, in the Talmud, another source is quoted that requires the adult to ask questions of him or herself: “Our rabbis taught: if his child is intelligent he asks him, while if he is not intelligent his wife asks him; but if not, he asks himself. And even two scholars who know the laws of Passover ask one another.” (Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim 116a)

Here the point is not to recount the story of the Exodus to children, but rather to create a dialogue of questions and answers among adults. The questions of the wise child may be thought-provoking to his or her parents; similarly, the questions of one colleague would be of interest to another. Someone who knows all the laws of Pesach is still required to ask questions, and scholars on their own at the seder are required to ask themselves questions. Why?

At a certain level, the questions serve as an external pretext to refresh the memory in order to raise the level of consciousness concerning the Exodus, even for those who have passive knowledge of the information. At another level, someone who asks himself or herself questions and then answers them, can delve deeper and discover new aspects of knowledge.

This is the educational method practised in the Lithuanian yeshivot – two students on the same level study the text by asking each other questions, raising hypotheses and debating the issues, without hearing lectures from a teacher “who knows the answers.”

This is common practice in universities, where a researcher finding himself or herself at an impasse takes a walk alone while conducting an internal dialogue, which may culminate with new insights into a subject with which s/he is very familiar. The question is a powerful tool for the advancement of the thinking of both the one who asks and answers it.

The rabbis identified a particular type of question, known as a kushiya. A kushiya queries a practice that contains an internal contradiction or which runs contrary to other authorized sources. Unlike the kushiya, an ordinary question generally begins with the word “what,” for example, “What time is it?” It is as if the object of the question has something, information, that the one asking the question needs, and that the one asked “lends” out (literally, sh’ayla, in Hebrew).

The formulation of the kushiya is more sophisticated: “One would expect that such a thing would happen or be written, but why has something else, something unexpected happened or been written?” The poser of the kushiya comes equipped with information and expectations for a certain world order, and this makes him or her aware of deviations, contradictions and the disappointment of expectations. “How is this night different from all other nights – on all other nights we eat leavened bread and matzah, but on this night we eat only matzah?”

The one posing the kushiya sees the whole picture and has expectations of a rational world order. That is why any contradiction requires a rational explanation. We might expect that the more one learns, the fewer questions s/he might ask, after all, s/he already has so much information. But the true intellectual will pose ever more kushiyot, because s/he is all the more aware of the complexity of the world, which is arranged according to so many principles. Curiosity is increasingly aroused and that is why the wise child is the one who asks the kushiyot of his or her own volition, while the younger children need the help of the parent to ask even the simplest question.

Paradoxically, the search for rationality is sustained by the unusual and not by the regular orderly routine. People do not query that which can be taken for granted, even if the explanation is unknown. For example, based on the experience of many Pesachs and seder nights, to the adult Jew, the youngest child asking the Four Questions is taken as a matter of course. But as soon as s/he discovers a different version of the questions, such as the one we saw in the Mishnah, s/he asks “Why do we ask these questions and not others? What is the reason?” or “Why does the Mishnah say the parent says Ma Nishtanah rather than the child?”

The search for rationality in our familiar world is sustained by the ability to imagine alternatives to the existing order. There is a set introduction to the midrashei halakha, homiletic interpretations and inferences of the rabbis (in the Mekhilta). It involves the raising of a hypothetical question, as in this example from the Haggadah. The rabbis wondered:

“You shall tell your child on that day: ‘It is because of this, that the Lord did for me when I went free from Egypt.’” Could this verse mean that you should begin to tell the story at the beginning of the month (in which the Exodus occurred)? No, for the verse explicitly states “on that day” (of the Exodus). Could that mean that we start when it is still daytime? No, for the verse explicitly states: “because of this.” “This” refers to matzah and maror laid before you (only on seder night) (Mekhilta).

“This” implies that the parents must point at the matzah and maror, and use them as visual aids to tell the story (Rabbi Simcha of Vitri).

“Could this verse mean” introduces an imaginative, alternative hypothesis based on the biblical text. “No, for the verse explicitly states that” is a strict construction of the meaning of the existent version of the text that neutralizes the feasibility of an alternative suggestion.

Indeed, the midrashei halakha ask even when no additional version has been found, and only an imaginative person could envisage other reasonable possibilities. There is no attempt here to undermine the accepted text or religious practice, but rather to understand what lies behind it.

If so, then the study method of the rabbis is seemingly founded on a paradox. In order to understand the reasons for the existing order of the customs or the words of the biblical text, we must be able to conceive of another order based on alternative logic. Only that which is not self-explanatory and is not accepted blindly as tradition can lead to a process of thought and discovery of the rationality it contains. The ideal scholar in the culture of the rabbis is not an authoritative figure acting on the basis of a simplistic faith who accepts basic premises without question.

Noam Zion has been a senior research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute since 1978, and he teaches in Hartman Institute rabbinic programs. He also works with the Muslim Leadership Institute, the Hevruta gap-year program for Israeli and American Jews, and the Angelica Ecumenical Studies program in collaboration with the Vatican University Angelicum in Rome. He has developed study guides on Bible, holidays and rabbinic ethics, has numerous publications to his credit and lectures worldwide. Articles by Zion and other Hartman Institute scholars can be found at shalomhartman.org.

A need for ethical guidelines

This time of year, we read Torah portions in the Book of Leviticus. It’s full of information about how to do sacrifices at the Temple in Jerusalem. It’s a good reminder – things have changed in the Jewish world, haven’t they? Perhaps we don’t need details for how to do a sin offering, an offering of well-being or for first fruits? Then again, maybe we do.

Huh? No, I don’t mean we need to learn to kill animals to sacrifice them. However, the rituals described in Leviticus have become guidelines for other things we do. For instance, it’s common to make a donation to a synagogue in honour of someone, or to express gratitude for a return to good health, a success at work or a family celebration. There are modern interpretations for some of these rituals, including the need to do something to repair things when feeling guilt or after committing a sin.

Parts of Leviticus offer us good metaphors … reminders that we can apply to other things in Jewish life.

I receive an email newsletter from the Jewish news organization JTA. One of the articles that popped up was about fundraising: “Women in Jewish fundraising say harassment is pervasive.” I followed the link. It turns out that fundraisers for Jewish organizations and in the nonprofit world are mostly women.

Donors? You guessed it, are predominantly men. Just like in other parts of the #MeToo professional world, many Jewish fundraisers have tolerated widespread harassment in order to do their jobs. If you don’t bring in the money, it’s hard to keep your fundraising job. These fundraisers have told hair-raising tales of stalking, requests for dates or sexual favours and dangling professional opportunities “if only” the woman professional would “cooperate.”

Most of us don’t want to imagine that one’s body has to be part of a professional encounter in the fundraising arena, unless perhaps your wife, daughter, mother or sister is a sex worker (and Jewish tradition has plenty of those. Read the Bible for more on that). Imagine if your daughter, recently graduated from university, went to lunch for her job at a Jewish nonprofit. A grey-haired man sat next to her, put his chequebook down, stuck his hand up her thigh under the table, and let her know that there would be more money to come if she just went out with him.

Disgusting? Yes. These days, there are laws that say both men and women deserve the same fair pay for their work and freedom from harassment on the job.

Oh, come on, some say – this doesn’t happen in the Jewish world. Well, it does. Jews can be alcoholics, drug addicts, adulterers, criminals and more. We are people. People aren’t perfect. We commit sin, and feel guilty. (Remember those Temple sacrifices?)

The sad part is that, in many ways, we groom children to be cooperative, to respect adults in their community, to listen and obey us even if they don’t know everyone’s name. This grooming, particularly for girls, starts young. This sometimes results in bad things happening. Young women tolerate a lot before they realize something bad happened and they should complain.

As someone who used to teach full-time (and a mom), I see things that make me scared in this regard. Imagine free-range preschoolers and elementary schoolers, left to roam in a Jewish community building without adequate parental supervision. Adults offer them candy or encourage them to find their parents, but no one leads them directly to the children’s activity or to their parents. Never mind the potential for accidents or getting into mischief … worse happens.

This situation is ripe for a predator to step in with candy and lure a child away. This is how horrible, life-altering, illegal things happen to children. When I mentioned this concern aloud, the response was: “Oh, kids roam around. It’s always been this way.” Really? Thank goodness that, in Jewish tradition, we evolve and change. Even the most traditional among us don’t do sacrifices anymore. We no longer sweep childhood sexual abuse under the rug. We no longer think it is OK for women to earn less, or that they must tolerate sexual harassment on the job. We no longer think it is OK for male donors to expect they can get away with this, if only they write a big cheque.

The key to changing a culture that allows sexual predation is in Leviticus, too. The instructions for sacrifice are well laid out and clear to follow. There’s a set of steps and a ritual to each one. In the JTA article written by Debra Nussbaum Cohen, she outlines some of the new efforts to make organizational and structural change to these interactions between funders and donors. This includes laying out ethical guidelines when it comes to sexual harassment and abuse, specifically addressing the power imbalance between fundraisers, who solicit donations to keep their jobs, and funders, who hold the purse strings.

Judaism has plenty to offer when it comes to respecting someone’s body, modesty and personal space. If we know the rules to appropriate behaviour, we recognize that we can do a lot to make modern environments safer and more ethical. We also must be aware that harassing fundraisers (who happen to be women), paying our Jewish professionals (who are often women) inadequately, or failing to provide our children Jewish “safe” spaces are not acceptable ways to behave as Jews.

If Jewish tradition alone doesn’t matter to some? Many of these behaviours are also illegal. We may mourn the loss of the Temple and pray for its return. However, I vote to exchange Leviticus’s ritual steps for bloody sacrifice with those ethical behavioural guidelines for donations that emerged from the rabbinic age. We can ritualize good behaviour around tzedakah (charity) instead.

Joanne Seiff writes regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. See more about her at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Holiday baking

In preparation for Purim, students of White Rock South Surrey JCC Religious School baked hamantashen to take home and share with their families. (photos from WRSS JCC)

Music to say thank you

Anna Levy (photo from Yarilo Contemporary Music Society)

My mother’s maiden name was Levy, my dad’s surname was also Levy. My story is about life. None of my family was killed during the Holocaust. I am alive because I grew up in a small European country, Bulgaria, that – despite being Nazi-aligned – managed to save all its Jews during the Second World War. And I – and many others – will be saying thank you through music this spring in a major concert marking the 75th anniversary of this historic series of events, for which we are so grateful.

During the Holocaust, Bulgaria had a complex record. While it is responsible for deporting 11,000 Jews from Bulgarian-occupied territories, most of whom were murdered at Treblinka, it defied Hitler and saved all 50,000 of its Jews, among which was my family.

In 1943, the complicated diplomatic manoeuvres of the Bulgarian parliament, led by Dimitar Peshev, along with civil disobedience and the strong official opposition of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, resulted in the cancellation of the deportation that was planned for March of that year.

In June 1943, then German ambassador to Bulgaria, Adolf Heinz Beckerle reported to Berlin, “The Bulgarian society doesn’t quite understand the real meaning of the Jewish question … so the racial question is totally foreign to them,” and he complained that the Bulgarian people lacked “the ideological enlightenment that we [Germans] have.”

In 1996, Jewish National Fund named a forest in honour of Bulgaria, with memorial plaques dedicated to Peshev, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and to King Boris.

This year marks the 75 years since the salvation of Bulgarian Jews during the war and preparations are underway in Bulgaria, Israel and in other countries to mark this anniversary.

In Vancouver, on May 27, Project Tehillim will take place at the Orpheum Annex. Twenty-three professional musicians will participate in the program featuring Tehillim, which was written by one of the most famous living Jewish American composers, Steve Reich. This event should occupy a central place in Metro Vancouver’s cultural life, as the work is unique, rarely performed and difficult to put together.

“Tehillim,” explains Reich, “is the original Hebrew word for Psalms. Literally translated, it means praises, and it derives from the three-letter Hebrew root ‘hey, lamed, lamed’ … which is also the root of halleluyah.”

In his notes on the website of classical music publishing company Boosey & Hawkes, Reich also writes, “One of the reasons I chose to set Psalms as opposed to parts of the Torah or Prophets is that the oral tradition among Jews in the West for singing Psalms has been lost. (It has been maintained by Yemenite Jews.) This meant that I was free to compose the melodies for Tehillim without a living oral tradition to either imitate or ignore.”

That said, he notes, “The rhythm, of the music here comes directly from the rhythm of the Hebrew text and is, consequently, in flexible changing meters.”

Tehillim is deeply rooted in ancient Hebrew traditions from biblical times. This is not music of contemporary daily life, but instead conjures the timeless and eternal. This work is a deep reflection of Jewish tradition presented in a modern way.

The budget for this large-scale project is more than $20,000: for musicians’ fees, theatre rental, scores, instrument rentals and other expenses. To help raise these funds, the Yarilo Contemporary Music Society – of which I am co-artistic director with Jane Hayes – is holding the concert Lest We Forget, on Sunday, April 8, 3 p.m., at Pyatt Hall, with the support of the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture.

The fundraising concert features classical masterpieces. The centrepiece of the program – which will be performed by Angela Cavadas (violin), Rebecca Wenham (cello), Johanna Hauser (clarinet) and me on piano – is Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A Minor, written in memory of his Jewish friend Nikolai Rubinstein. In addition, there will be music by Jewish composers Srul Irving Glick (Suite hébraïque) and Ernest Bloch (Prayer).

Both concerts – Tehillim and Lest We Forget – highlight the spiritual qualities of the Jewish people. In the words of the non-Jewish author Milan Kundera about the importance of Jews in Europe: “Indeed, no other part of the world has been so deeply marked by the influence of Jewish genius. Aliens everywhere and everywhere at home, lifted above national quarrels, the Jews in the 20th century were the principal cosmopolitan, integrating element in Central Europe: they were its intellectual cement, a condensed version of its spirit, creators of its spiritual unity. That’s why I love the Jewish heritage and cling to it with as much passion and nostalgia as though it were my own.”

I love the Jewish heritage with a passion, as well, and it is “our own.” I hope that other members of the Jewish community will become Yarilo’s partners, and help us make Project Tehillim a worthy thank you. To contribute to the project, visit gofundme.com/2018-my-jewish-story-is-for-life; the campaign includes a third concert, which is planned for October. For tickets to the April 8 fundraising performance at Pyatt Hall, visit yarilomusic.com.

Stressing action over just being

Rabbi Deborah Waxman, PhD, president of Reconstructionist Judaism, recently released a statement about rebranding. Instead of calling the rabbinical college and umbrella congregational movement the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and Jewish Reconstructionist Communities, the header now is “Reconstructing Judaism.” The tag line below it reads, “Deeply rooted. Boldly relevant.”

Why do this? Well, in Rabbi Waxman’s statement, this sentence jumped out: “A critical path forward is shifting from a focus on ‘being’ Jewish – important but insufficient for providing substance and structure – to a focus on ‘doing’ Jewish.”

This is of central importance as we reshape 21st-century Jewish life. If you’re modifying Jewish by saying Reconstructionist, or Reform, Orthodox, Conservative, etc., you define your Jewish identity as a state of being. That is, “this is who I am.” It is akin to saying “I have brown eyes” or “I have freckles.”

However, in an era when people aren’t participating in group or congregational activities as often, it’s useful to go back to our tradition itself. We practise Judaism. Judaism doesn’t rely on a theological belief system as do some evangelical Christians. Or, as my husband jokes, when somebody needs a 10th body for a minyan, no one asks what you believe. There’s no extended questioning or exam. In that moment, we’re defined by what we do – the person showed up when needed, ready to “do Jewish” in a Jewish space.

If you’re wondering why anyone should care about this, it’s because Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, the founding thinker of Reconstructionism, significantly affected North American Judaism as a whole. His concept of Jewish peoplehood affected every form of 20th- and 21st-century Judaism. Kaplan, while raised Orthodox, was a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative movement) until he retired. His son-in-law founded the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. So, even if you don’t consider yourself a Reconstructionist, many aspects of how North American Jews understand their belonging to the Jewish people stem from Kaplan’s mid-20th century work, which was conceived of as “radical” at the time.

Around the same time that I read about rebranding Judaism, I had a strange “blast” from the past. I was contacted by someone who had once been a dear close friend. How close? I’d lived with her for a year on a kibbutz in Israel. I ate dinner with her the night I got engaged. She stood up for me under the chuppah at my wedding – we were friends for 15 years. We often saw each other on a weekly basis, if not more often. This person was an essential part of my life.

As an aside, I’ll stop to say it’s just not in my nature to ditch a longtime friend or, as some say, ghosting. I wouldn’t disappear or ignore someone on purpose. I take to heart the part of Pirkei Avot (Sayings of Our Fathers) 1:6 – “Find yourself a mentor, acquire for yourself a friend.” While learning opportunities are a lifelong interest, I also understood the rabbis’ interpretation of “acquiring” a friend. You have to invest and work on friendship. It takes time and effort. You have to show interest and concern about friends, and try to “pay them” that attention so that they will like you back.

What happened with my dear friend? In 2003, she was going through some life changes, as was I. We had a disagreement. Instead of discussing it and resolving things, or even fighting, she just dumped me. She wouldn’t respond to me at all. For many years, it tore me apart. I missed her terribly, but, what’s more, I felt as though if I’d just done something differently or been a better friend, this wouldn’t have happened.

I sought her forgiveness several times. I tried to contact her on holidays and wish her well. I even emailed her brother to make sure she was healthy and OK, because the absolute silence and rejection seemed so unlike the previous 15 years of our friendship. In short, I tried hard to be her friend, to invest in repairing any wrongs, long after she’d left the partnership.

This was a painful life lesson. I eventually learned that no matter how hard I tried to fix things, friendships take two people. I couldn’t do it on my own.

At first, I was thrilled to hear from this person again. I showed my husband the note I’d received, and I responded eagerly. My husband was more dispassionate and worried about me. He showed me something I’d overlooked. While clearly she’d laboured over the note’s wording, it didn’t look like it was personally sent to me. It might have been sent to multiple people she’d wronged over the years. While a group teshuvah (apology) is sometimes necessary, it’s not the personal reconnection and friendship I’d craved.

My old friend is professionally affiliated with Jewish Reconstructionism. The rebranding of Reconstructing Judaism pushed me to reflect. One of her online statements says she embraces rachamim (compassion), gemilut hasadim (acts of lovingkindness) and ethical living – but there’s sometimes a distance between what we “believe in” and what we do. I’m impressed that Reconstructing Judaism has taken a strong, active step. They’re doing Jewish in an era when North America Judaism needs this leadership.

Corporations rebrand all the time. It boosts sales and changes their public images. It might be time that Judaism does the same. As for me, I’ve had an internal emotional rollercoaster – the loss of a long friendship perhaps made me a more cautious, distant person when it came to building new connections. I don’t throw myself into friendships with the joie de vivre that I did as a teenager. In my rush to respond, my note to this old friend was still wary, with clichés. “Life is long. It’s good to have friends.”

Relearning this Jewish notion of acquiring friendship helped me put this episode in perspective. I wish I’d included it in my note. Could we learn together, invest in each other, do right by people, and create a rooted and relevant future? If that’s what she’s up for, I hope she writes back.

נגד “הרשימה השחורה”

הרב אדם שאייר מנהיג קהילת ‘שער השמים’ במונטריאול יוצא נגד הרבנות הראשית. (צילום: מקהילת שער השמים)

הרב הראשי של קהילת ‘שער שמיים’ במונטריאול, אדם שאייר, יוצא בחריפות נגד פעילותה של הרבנות הראשית בישראל, שלדבריו פסלה אותו. הרב שאייר ביקר בישראל לאחרונה ואף השתתף בישיבת ועדת העלייה, הקליטה והתפוצות של הכנסת, כדי לשטוח את טענותיו הקשות נגד התנהלות הרבנות. הרב שאייר הוא הרב הבכיר הנמנה על “הרשימה השחורה” של הרבנות הראשית, הכוללת 160 רבנים מעשרים וארבע מדינות כולל ארה”ב, קנדה, אנגליה ודרום אפריקה. בהם רבנים אורתודוכסים בכירים ביהדות החרדית, ומחסידות חב”ד. הרבנים שנמנים על “הרשימה השחורה” לא הוכרו על ידי הרבנות לנושאי בירור יהדות ומעמד אישי.

דבר “הרשימה השחורה” שפורסמה בחודש יולי אשתקד עורר תגובות נזעמות בארץ ובחו”ל. יו”ר ‘עתים’ (עמותה המסייעת למי שנתקל בקשיים מול הממסד הדתי), הרב שאול פרבר, אמר כי “הרשימה השחורה” היא תעודת עניות להתנהלותה של הרבנות הראשית, מול יהדות התפוצות. הוא הוסיף: “אני תוהה מי הסמיך את הרבנות להחליט שרב של קהילה מסויימת בחו”ל אינו מקובל, ולפיכך חברי קהילתו אינם יהודים. הרבנות מנסה להפוך את עצמה לסמכות הבלעדית, והתנהגות זאת מביאה את העולם היהודי כולו לחשוש מן הבאות, ולגנות בתוקף את המגמה הפסולה הזו”.

הרב שאייר אמר בישיבת הוועדה: “אין לי אישור מהרבנות לחתן כיוון שהיא פסלה אותי. הרבנות גורמת לחלול השם. הם לא אמרו לי כי נדחתי, ורק שלחו לי מכתב שאולי אני לא יהיה מאושר. אני רב אמיתי והסמכתי לגיטימית. נפגעתי אישית מזה שהרבנות דחתה אותי ואת ההסמכה שלי. היא פוגעת ביכולת שלי לשרת את העם היהודי. המצב הקיים גורם לחוסר אמון ביני כמנהיג קהילה גדולה, לבין חבריה, החוששים לעלות לישראל ולהתחתן בה, מחשש שלא יוכרו בה כיהודים. זה פוגע במעמדי ובמוניטין שלי. הדבר הגיע לידי כך, שרבנים אחרים ממלצים לזוגות שלא לפנות אלי לעריכת חופה”. בדיון נכח גם מנכ”ל הרבנות הראשית לישראל, משה דגן. הרב שאייר הטיח בו: “בפעם הבאה לפני שאתם שוללים אותי, אני מזמין אתכם לבקר בבית הכנסת שלי. זו בהחלט תהיה חווית למידה”.

דגן אמר בתגובה כי הרבנות לא יצרה כביכול “רשימה שחורה” של רבנים בחו”ל. הוא הוסיף: “הדמגוגיה הזו שכביכול יצרנו רשימה של רבנים לא מוכרים, זה דבר שקר. הרבנות ובתי הדין אישרו את הרב שאייר, אך הם מחוייבים לבדוק את אמיתות המסמכים שהוצגו להם מטעמו. לא הספקנו לפנות לרב שאייר כיוון שיש לנו עומס עבודה רב. למחלקת האישות והגירות מגיעים כשלושת אלפים אישורים מדי שנה, ורק עובד אחד ושני סטודנטים מטפלים בכל הבקשות”. מנכ”ל הרבנות ביקש להוסיף עוד: “ההחלטות של הרבנות הוצאו מהקשרן. אני מיצר על פגיעה ברבנים כתוצאה ממה שהוצג על ידי אחרים “כרשימה שחורה”, ומתנצל על פירסומה. הטיוטה והקריטריונים להכרה ברבני חו”ל כבר גובשה, והיא נשלחה לארגוני הרבנים בעולם. לאחר קבלת התייחסותם, כמתחייב, הם ידונו ויאושרו במועצת הרבנות הראשית”.

הרב שאייר המשמש גם סגן נשיא ועד רבני קנדה, נחשב למקורב לראש ממשלת קנדה, ג’סטין טרודו. הוא אף ביקר עם טרודו באתר מחנה ההשמדה אושוויץ לפני כקרוב לשנתיים. הרב שאייר שימש גם כרבו של הזמר ליאונרד כהן, אף הוא חבר בקהילתו שנפטר אשתקד.

קהילת ‘שער שמים’ האותודורכסית נוסדה בשנת 1846 בווסטמאונט מונטריאול והיא מונה כיום כאלף וארבע מאות משפחות. הקהילה מחזיקה בבית הכנסת האותודוכסי הגדול ביותר בקנדה.

Importance of rite of passage

Our son, Nissim Shalom, recently became a bar mitzvah, and it is a living reminder for us of our family’s remarkable and ancient history. According to Jewish law, a Jewish boy reaching the age of 13 becomes a bar mitzvah and is responsible for assuming the mitzvot of Jewish adulthood. (A girl becomes a bat mitzvah at the age of 12.) Once a bar mitzvah, a person may be counted in a minyan (prayer quorum) and may lead religious services in the family and the community.

The bar mitzvah age was selected because it roughly coincides with physical puberty (Talmud Niddah, 45b). Prior to a child becoming a bar mitzvah, the child’s parents are responsible for the child’s actions, but b’nai mitzvah bear responsibility for their own actions with respect to Jewish ritual law, ethics and tradition and are able to participate in all areas of Jewish community life.

Upon a boy’s becoming a bar mitzvah, a celebration is made in his honour. The current scale of celebrations is much greater than it used to be in the mellah, or shtetl, of the old countries. In the past, this rite of passage was a joyous matter of course for every Jewish child without exception. In more recent times, however, this milestone is unfortunately not as absolute as it once was. Hence, we celebrate the occasion with more ostentation to highlight the cherished continuity of our heritage.

In the Moroccan community, we have many unique customs.

On the eve of the celebration, the bar mitzvah gets a haircut in the presence of his family and, as in every Moroccan celebration, traditional henna is put on his hand. On the celebratory day, it is customary for the family to help the bar mitzvah boy don tallit and tefillin, thereby showing him how dear this mitzvah is.

Many in the Moroccan community had the custom of taking the boy to a mikvah, stressing the idea of purity and holiness. Some had the custom of snatching the tefillin from the boy, so that the father would be obliged to redeem them with money, thereby demonstrating their importance.

When the bar mitzvah is called to the Torah, it is customary for the women to ululate “lulululu.” This custom originates from a kabbalistic source stating that, in every holy and happy occasion, the evil inclination (yetzer harah) is challenged to act. Thus, the women scream out in order to confuse and to chase away the yetzer harah.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the future of the Jewish people depends in large measure upon the bar (and bat) mitzvah event. Education, and particularly education of our young, has been and remains the means by which we continue to thrive, to exist, to ensure the future of Klal Israel. Is it any wonder that we celebrate with such gusto, as families and communities, this uniquely Jewish simchah by which we renew ourselves and our time in Jewish history?

Rabbi Ilan Acoca is a veteran rabbi and educator. He is the rabbi emeritus of Vancouver’s Congregation Beth Hamidrash and currently serves as the rabbi of the Sephardic Congregation of Fort Lee-Bet Yosef, in Fort Lee, N.J., and rav beit hasefer of Yeshivat Ben Porat Yosef, in Paramus, N.J. He is the writer of the book The Sephardic Book of Why and has written hundreds of articles on various topics for different publications.